


It's Saturday in Mercy

by dizzy



Category: Little Mosque on the Prairie
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:29:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy





	It's Saturday in Mercy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zara Hemla (zarahemla)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarahemla/gifts).



It's Saturday in Mercy.

 

*

 

"Dad!" Layla shouts from the top of the stairs. "Dad, did you wash my green sweater?"

"I did!" Babar says, smiling the proud smile of a man who doesn't know when he's made a grave, grave mistake.

"Did, you washed my green sweater with my purple one! It was new!" She says, mouth twisted in a tearless wail. "I just bought it last week and you washed it with my purple sweater! Don't you know anything?"

Babar's face falls, but Layla has teenage blinders on. But even if she'd been looking, she wouldn't have seen but a glimpse. His scowl matches hers, identical in a way only genetics can provide. "Then you should do your laundry when I tell you to! Your room is a disgrace! How will you make a good wife for someone when you cannot even keep your clothes and your compact discs full of immoral Western influences off of your bedroom floor!"

"Stay out of my room and it won't bother you!" Layla shouts back, and then huffs, staring at her sweater for a split second before she throws it. It lands halfway down the stairs, a short enough distance that she obviously wasn't throwing it at Babar, but it's close enough for him to see red.

"LAYLA!"

He's so glad to have her back.

 

*

 

"I don't know what I'm doing here." Amaar says, not for the first time, not even for the fifth."

"You're being a good friend." Rayyan gives him a wide smile, chin tilted up like she knows she has him wrapped around her little finger. He tries not to take it personally, for the sake of his sanity and his ego. He's seen that expression aimed at a hundred different people over the last few years. It has something to do with her competitive streak – Rayyan always gets what she wants.

(Almost always.)

Besides, maybe he's getting off lucky. She could have asked for a lot more than help painting her kitchen.

"And your father couldn't have done this, why…?" He asks, swiping the brush back and forth across a spot of wall. He can feel her eyes following him, the corner of her mouth twitching. He's probably doing something wrong again. She's showing great restraint in not correcting him right off. She won't last more than a minute, he's willing to bet on it… if he were the kind of person that bet. Which he isn't.

Still. A minute, tops.

"Because he's got half a dozen other jobs right now, and those people are actually going to pay him money." She says, and then reaches out with her brush, knocking his aside. "No, like this."

"Ahh, got it. Like this." He repeats the motion completely unlike the way she'd just shown him. "And – what exactly is your mother doing? I don't think I've seen her with a paintbrush in her hand all day."

"Mom's… supervising."

"She's supervising the television. And you have to go help her every ten minutes?"

She's so cute when she goes all tense and bothered like that. He really shouldn't bait her like this.

"Amaar, please, just-" She's about to try to explain again when she catches onto his grin and rolls her eyes at him, one hand on her hip.

"The more you mess up on purpose, the longer it'll take, you know."

 

*

 

Fatima's café is busy is on a Saturday afternoon. Plates and silverware clank together, voices chattering. Some are louder than others; Fred at the counter, vying for her attention even as she makes a show of ignoring him. He's trying to drum up topics for his radio show and she's not really interested in being any sort of contributor.

It's a typical Saturday afternoon venture. Fred has nowhere else to be; Fatima couldn't be anywhere else if she wanted. It's become routine, the way one gets used to minor aches and pains, the sort of thing you'd notice more if it weren't there.

"Order food or leave." She demands, stopping in front of his empty coffee cup.

"I ordered! I ordered coffee! Which, you should note has not been refilled in the last seventeen minutes. Is this the kind of service you offer here at this establishment? Maybe it's time for a little expose on Muslim tightwads…"

Her eyes narrow, expression similar in tone to a particularly nasty thundercloud. "You annoying little man, you do not scare me and you do not threaten me. Coffee refills are limited to one per half hour."

"Where does it say that?" He says. "I've read your menu front to back – while sitting here waiting for more coffee! – and nowhere on it does it say-"

Fatima points to a sign directly behind her to a printout sign taped up. It reads: Coffee refills limited to one per half hour.

"… it should be on your menu, too. No one can see that tiny little sign!" He says. He stands up, shoulders squared, making a stand.

"You'll be hearing from me again on this issue!"

As soon as he's out the door, she turns around and takes down the sign, smiling to herself.

 

*

 

"Ooh, Yasir, right there… oh! Ohhh…" Sarah moans, slumped back against the couch. The television plays some sports game that she has no interest in, but she's happy to let her husband keep control of the television as long as he keeps up what he's doing with his hands. "Right there – right – oh!"

"Yes, yes," He mutters absently, thumb digging into a tender spot on the arch of her heel.

On the table, her cell phone rings off the hook, but she's got it on silent. The mayor can wait until Monday with whatever crisis of nail polish color or unpaid parking ticket she's currently undergoing.

 

*

 

Joe Peterson is out for a quiet stroll. There are kids playing in the street, the ones that wave at him and the ones that throw rocks at him, and he greets them all alike; a blank expression. It's not that he doesn't like kids. He just doesn't particularly like them, either. He's very… neutral. Yeah, that's the word. He's neutral on the topic of kids.

They're all right, so long as they stay out of his way on his Saturday stroll.


End file.
